Brocade 6505 Hardware Reference Manual - Manual (Page 24)

• System services that have already started will reflect the time zone changes only after the next
reboot.
• Time zone settings persist across failover for high availability.
Local time synchronization
You can synchronize the local time of the principal or primary fabric configuration server (FCS) switch
to a maximum of eight external Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers. To keep the time in your SAN
current, it is recommended that the principal or primary FCS switch has its time synchronized with at
least one external NTP server. The other switches in the fabric will automatically take their time from
the principal or primary FCS switch.
All switches in the fabric maintain the current clock server IP address in non-volatile memory. By
default, this value is LOCL, the local clock server of the Principal (when FCS not enabled) or Primary
(when FCS is enabled) switch. Changes to the clock server value on the Principal or Primary switch
are propagated to all switches in the fabric.
When a new switch enters the fabric, the time server daemon of the Principal or Primary switch sends
out the addresses of all existing clock servers and the time to the new switch. If a switch with Fabric
OS v5.3.0 or later has entered the fabric, it will be able to store the list of all the clock server
addresses; switches running Fabric OS versions earlier than v5.3.0 will ignore the new list parameter
in the payload and will update only the active server address.
If the active NTP server configured is IPv6, then distributing the IP address in the fabric will not be
possible to switches earlier than Fabric OS v5.3.0 because IPv6 is supported for Fabric OS v5.3.0 and
later. The default value LOCL will be distributed to switches earlier than Fabric OS v5.3.0.
The tsClockServer command accepts multiple server addresses in IPv4, IPv6, or DNS name formats.
When multiple NTP server addresses are passed, tsClockServer sets the first obtainable address as
the active NTP server. The rest are stored as backup servers that can take over if the active NTP
server fails. The Principal or Primary switch synchronizes its time with the NTP server every 64
seconds.
Setting the date
1. Log in to the switch using the default password (which is password).
2. Enter the date command, using the following syntax:
date "mmddHHMMyy"
The values are:
• mm is the month; valid values are 01 through 12.
• dd is the date; valid values are 01 through 31.
• HH is the hour; valid values are 00 through 23.
• MM is minutes; valid values are 00 through 59.
• yy is the year; valid values are 00 through 99 (values greater than 69 are interpreted as 1970
through 1999, and values less than 70 are interpreted as 2000 through 2069).
switch:admin> date
Fri Sep 29 17:01:48 UTC 2007
switch:admin> date "0927123007"
Thu Sep 27 12:30:00 UTC 2007
switch:admin>
Local time synchronization
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